Darkandlight

DARK+LIGHT

Deborah Grice’s paintings explore the space between what is seen and what remains hidden.
Drawing on the visual language of the Romantic landscape, Grice creates quiet, atmospheric spaces in which distant horizons, sheltering structures and geometric forms become metaphors for refuge, uncertainty and hope. Familiar landscape is appropriated and subtly disrupted, inviting the viewer to look beyond the apparent simplicity of the scene.

Future Nostalgia , Oil and phosphorescent pigment on canvas, 30cm x 40cm, 2025

Light is central to the work. Alongside oil paint, Grice uses phosphorescent pigment to introduce elements that are barely perceptible in daylight but become luminous as the light fades. The paintings therefore exist in two states. As daylight diminishes, another landscape begins to emerge; forms that were hidden become visible and the familiar is transformed.

Safehold , Oil and phosphorescent pigment on canvas, 18cm x 24cm, 2025

This movement between light and darkness reflects Grice’s interest in perception and the shifting nature of experience. The darkness does not conceal the landscape but reveals another dimension within it. The phosphorescent elements become a metaphor for hope: something that can remain present even when it cannot immediately be seen.

Where We Hope III, Oil and phosphorescent pigment on canvas, 15cm x 18cm, 2025

Her paintings ask the viewer to slow down, to look again and to consider what might exist beyond the visible. Landscape becomes not simply a depiction of place, but a space for reflection, refuge and possibility.

Safehold III, Oil and phosphorescent pigment on canvas, 20cm x 32.2cm, 2025

The paintings invite a slower kind of looking, where what is familiar becomes uncertain and what is hidden begins to surface. As the light changes, the paintings reveal another way of seeing — a quiet reminder that what cannot always be seen is not necessarily absent.

Dark+lIGHT